The present invention generally relates to receivers, and more particularly to compact photonic radio frequency receivers used in the front end of space flight and airborne communications and EW/ISR systems.
Space and airborne communications systems can benefit from a significant increase in data rates and coverage on the ground, in addition to an increase in the number of antenna apertures and receiver channels. Conventional front end receivers can limit the capacity in each of these areas. The front end of a receiver for space flight communication applications typically take up about 30% of the payload mass of a space communication system. A compact, low mass receiver could reduce that value or increase the capacity of the system. However, while a compact receiver is desirable, creating the compact receiver may be difficult because available components and packaging are too large, do not provide needed functionality, and may not be designed for space applications.